CASSETTE FROM MY EX

Friends, we’re thrilled to announce our latest secret project.  Cassette from My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves shares sixty hilarious, nostalgic and heartbreaking stories stories all about crushes and mixtapes.

Cassette From My Ex marries confessional culture projects like Mortified, PostSecret, and Six-Word Memoirs with the nostalgia and heartache of Rob Sheffield’s Love Is A Mixtape and gathers these tales of being young, in love, and making mixtapes for your crush.

CFME compiles stories from some amazing writers and musicians: author Rick Moody, The Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson, This American LIfe’s Starlee Kine, The New Yorker’s Ben Greenman, Blender Magazine’s Joe Levy, Improv Everywhere’s Charlie Todd, Mortified’s David Nadelberg–  even a new story from the godfather of the genre, Rob Sheffied.

We put a ton of love into the design, too, with 224 full-color pages designed by noted cassetteophile Lissi Erwin, with cover illustrations by the excellent Hope Gangloff.

Here’s some opening lines to whet your whistle:

“At first, I thought she was an alcoholic lesbian.”
-MC

“I was an Asian guy with long hair who was into Heavy Metal; she was a Latvian dancer who liked to chain-smoke Camels.”
-FJ

“My first kiss ended in bloodshed.”
-JS

“At nineteen, I had violently violet hair and ate mostly egg whites, grapefruit, and cheese.”
-MC

“Long ago, in a city I will not name, I loved a woman, and she punished me for it.”
-BG

It’s available for pre-order at Amazon now for a super cheep price.  Thanks to everyone who made it happen, and we’re psyched to hear what you think.

And we won!  We’re thrilled to share the critics thoughts on the new Cassette From My Ex book.  Writers are pretty unanimous that they love the anthology collection.  Read on!

The New Yorker:
“I challenge any mix-maker to look at these glorious Maxell, Fuji, and TDK cassettes without feeling the past’s dizzying tug… This collection of nervously-written liner notes and carefully wrought playlists recalls the thrill and anxiety that came with making a tape, and by extension, with falling in love.”

Marie Claire:
“Packed with comical and poignant tales of first love, friendship and heartbreak, the stories are relatable and at many times, bittersweet… From the hilarious hand-me-down tale of a woman who discovers two of her boyfriends dated the same woman, to the heartbreak of learning of an ex’s suicide, each story is written from the heart and begs the reader to turn the page and discover the story behind the next mixtape.”

The Boston Globe:
If you’ve ever painstakingly compiled a mix-tape of songs to express yourself to someone - complete with playlist, artwork, and title - then the book “Cassette From My Ex’’ should strike a chord with your inner DJ.

Brain Pickings:
“Extraordinarily relatable, Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves will move, inspire and delight literally everyone. Because we all have our stories of being young and in love and desperately trying to capture in music that intangible butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling. These stories shaped much of our relationship with music as a tool of emotion and self-expression — and this book is fascinating anthology of such stories, a beautiful intersection of musicology, anthropology and pure human experience.”

NYLON Magazine:
“The cassette tape is having a moment.  Nearly 20 years ago, the palm-sized music recorder lost favor to the trendier compact disc. But now that CDs are worth less than a piece of paper and indie labels are issuing cassette-only releases, it’s hard to not look back fondly at them.  Which might explain our love for Cassette From My Ex…”

Jakarta Globe:
From comical to melancholy, ironic to heart-wrenching, the 60 contributors to the book share their tales of lost loves, not just with all the pain and sadness, but also the happiness that they felt about the person who gave them the tape. Not longer than four pages each, the stories are a delightful read.  After reading “Cassette From My Ex,” you will surely find yourself looking for your own old mixtapes. Or may be in the mood to create a new one for someone close to your heart.

New York Post:
Jason Bitner is a master of turning garbage into gold.  His new book, “Cassette From My Ex,” is a compilation of 60 reflections from musicians and writers — including ex-Rolling Stone writer Jancee Dunn, Starlee Kine from “This American Life” and The Post’s Mary Huhn — about old mix tapes made by long-lost loves. The book was inspired by his blog of the same name.  Bitner got the idea for the blog while doing some spring cleaning in his Park Slope apartment last year…

For the publicity of Cassette From My Ex, we gave permission to LOST Magazine to reprint Anne Elizabeth Moore’s story (”Something I Still Feel Bad About”) online. Her contract was written to omit online reproduction of her story without author approval. We sincerely regret the error.

I had forgotten about the tape. It was a meaningful gift from I boy I use to love, but I had not forgotten about it’s heart, it’s beauty, and it ‘s ability to make me feel unrepentantly giddy. In 2005 I bought a car. A 2000 silver Passat station wagon. I fell for this car hard and fast. One of its many charms was the fact that it had a tape deck. Come on, 2000, who in their right mind still put a tape deck into a new car?  All I needed in 2005 was a 10 dollar I-pod adapter and the vast world of music stored on my tiny device could flow freely in my new soccer mom worthy ride, yet I really wanted the tape player. I was thrilled.

And then there was the icing on the cake, the box of mixed tapes, stuffed somewhere in the bottom of my coat closet. After a little search and rescue, I found the archive of music from my halcyon days. Including this gem, titled, of course, as any good mixed tape must be.

It is completely homemade, the case is constructed out of cardboard, the song list incorporated into a letter, lovingly typed on yellowing paper and glued, strip by strip, sentence by sentence, onto the outside of the case. It’s filled in with indie rock typical of the era, the Replacements, the Pogues, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. It’s true eclecticism, heartfelt earnestness, and oddball nature is a mirror of the maker.

I no longer remember if I received it in the mail or if Scott gave it to me in person. The chronology and context are a little foggy, though I am pretty sure the year was 1995. 14 years, what do you expect, whose brain hasn’t gotten a little soft. What is vivid is the love. We were head over heels in that enthusiastic generous early 20’s way. Our relationship was equally romantic, typified by leisurely long weekend visits, the exchange of handmade gifts, and dedicated letter writing campaigns, it was the mid nineties after all and people still put pen to paper. I lived in Chicago. He lived in small town New Hampshire. It was ultimately an unsustainable long distance affair that ended after about a year and a half.

Of the many objects we made for each other, this tape has remained in my possession. I still listen to it from time to time, read the sweet note collaged along its surface at a the periodic red light, and a little bit of giddiness creeps into an otherwise routine ride home from work.

Leslie Baum is a good judge of character, a daily maker of paintings.  She lives in Chicago.